Olympian hurdler has to learn on the fly

Relative newcomer absorbs events’ joy, disappointment

Olympian High School sophomore Sydney Magdalena is learning the intricacies of hurdling in her first year of high school track competition. She is accomplished enough already to qualify for the sectional track meet. K.C. Alfred • U-T

Olympian High School sophomore Sydney Magdalena is learning the intricacies of hurdling in her first year of high school track competition. She is accomplished enough already to qualify for the sectional track meet. K.C. Alfred • U-T

Schedule

The Olympian High School sophomore had to learn how to hurdle on the fly for most of the season, especially during the CIF-San Diego Section Track and Field Championship preliminaries last weekend at Mt. Carmel High.

Having competed a little as an eighth grader but not at all last season as she concentrated on soccer, Magdalena quickly turned heads this season as she dropped her times in the 100- and 300-meter hurdles in large chunks.

When she recorded a sizzling time of 14.77 seconds in the 100-meter event in the Mesa League finals and went on to scorch a 44.81 in the longer race, upsetting one of the section’s best — Alyssa Chang of Otay Ranch — she found herself in uncharted territory.

She had never run in a meet like the section championships in front of a large crowd more typical of a football game, and after one event it looked like she was going to burst on the scene like another South Bay athlete named Gail Devers had done 32 years earlier as a freshman at Sweetwater High.

Anchoring the Eagles’ 4x100 relay team, Magdalena helped her team qualify for the “A” final this weekend where the top three teams will advance to the state championship in Clovis. The foursome ran 48.75, the fourth fastest in the section and the third best among the finalists after El Camino’s girls dropped the baton.

Running the 100-meter hurdles an hour later, she couldn’t match that 14.77 but her heat-winning time of 15.09 was the sixth fastest of the day, earning her a chance to realize a season-long dream of going head-to-head with the best.

“I need competition,” said the 15-year-old Magdalena, who stands 5-foot-3½. “The 4x100 is a nice warm-up for the 100 hurdles, it gets rid of the butterflies. Now I get to face the big girls.”

The rest of the meet, though, she suddenly looked very much the newcomer as she just could not find her stride in the 300s, chopping her steps over the final five hurdles and qualifying only for the “B” race, whose purpose is to score team points and give the runners another chance to lower their times. No “B” race athlete can qualify for state.

Her time was a disappointing 46.49.

“That was some serious stutter-stepping,” said Magdalena, who had never experienced the feeling of suddenly being out of sync. Despite those problems, she still won the heat—little consolation.

“It was horrible. I almost stopped it was so humiliating and embarrassing. But maybe it’s a blessing. Now I can really focus on the 100 hurdles where I want to earn my way to state.”

Magdalena, whose mother Luz was a hurdler at Hoover, is coached by Sable Otey, who had been training at the Olympic Training Center with aspirations of making the 2012 U.S. Olympic team in the 400-meter hurdles.

A welcome pregnancy put those thoughts on hold but allowed her to work with Magdalena.